That's just fine, but consumers like me will therefore just pirate the content and the producers will get nothing instead of a fair price. No skin off my nose. Exactly the same as I refuse to be ripped off for global days roaming and use a local sim instead

So when the new iPhone comes out, and it doesn't meet your price and availability, do you intend to break in and steal that as well?

Let's be clear. Pirating is THEFT. You are STEALING when you do this.

Access to Content is not your RIGHT, it's a privilege same way anything you don't get for free is.

Not strictly true, theft is defined as depriving someone of something which is theirs, which applies to your iPhone analogy, but not to making a copy of digital material. You'll never be charged with theft for copyright beach, because it isn't theft

Err I hate to break it to you sport, but you are depriving them of something they value considerably, that would be INCOME!

That still doesn't make it theft. If I take the bus home instead of driving, I'm depriving a taxi driver of income, but I'm not stealing from him. You may have swallowed the piracy is theft line, but that doesn't make it trueI'm not saying it's not illegal, but it's not theft

LOL What? I'll let you just think about how nonsensical that comparison was.

No less valid than your assertion that copyright beach is theftTheft is defined as taking something from someone, so after the act, the victim no longer has something that he previously had. This plainly doesn't apply to the act of someone downloading a movie. It may deprive the owner of the chance to make income, but he still had exactly the same property before and after the act. Just like if I hang around in my car at the airport offering lifts to people, I'm depriving taxi drivers their income, but I'm not stealing from themIf you really can't understand the difference just say so and I'll move on, don't be embarrassed about it

Anyway, all this discussion is very interesting so here's my prediciton on what Netflix will 'do'

They will do enogh to make most people stop bypassing geoblocking. this means putting in sufficient barriers that a workaround is either too hard or complex.

my bet is they will do some combination of the following:

1) force people to use Credit Cards registered local to the region they are registered in (i.e. you sign up for NZ netflix, you must use NZ credit card. That on it's own wouldn't be enough - since NZers can sign up for NZ service then use US netflix via unblock-us etc. that's why they will also put something like part 2 in place2) put some sort of rule set in where if you use regions outside your 'home' region more than, a certain amount of the time, (e.g. 50%) then you MUST change your account to that region.

so basically, in order to consistently access USA netflix you would HAVE to use a US based credit card.Yes, there are ways around this - but this extra barrier alone would be enough to put most people off from trying to get around it. Most people don't want to be faffing around switching regions all the time or using overseas credit cards.

note that none of those first two things have ANYTHING to do with geo-unblocking services. There will be literally nothing those services could do about it.

finally, they will probably do something like this:3) block IP ranges known to be used by the major unblocking services. it wouldn't be too hard to figure these out - lots of people coming from a narrow range of IPs, customers on IPs where a bizarrely high number of region switches happen, unusually high latency on their requests (because they are coming from overseas!) etc. Yes, these services can shift IPs and try and stay ahead of the game, but if Netflix do it often enough, it will mean a lot of disruptions to their services, which means a lot of people will just give up and go back to something that works consistently.

for those of us who have more than a passing knowledge about the internet, (i.e. people on this forum) these things will prove pretty easy to get around, and we will continue to enjoy USA netflix with little disruption.But Netflix won't care. they aren't trying to stop everybody from doing it, just enough people to keep the studios happy.

Benoire: If you meant that moving to another provider that had the rights to the content you wanted in New Zealand then yes, I am repeating what you're saying... Depends on how you meant it :)

i dont know how else i could mean it mate, sorry but you lost me. there are other content owners providing to nz as well just as a side note.

The general assertion I read on many sites it is that people are entitled to any content and be damned with who owns the rights and what they have agreed; hence the desire to bypass geoblocking... I guess I misinterpreted your post as meaning your entitled to change provider to get the content that you want no matter its location, rather than change provider for content served for New Zealand.

As was said earlier, the content owners who restrict rights, do so to maximise revenue. Nothing wrong with that. I don't call that outdated, if thats the case. Its what businesses do.

So, they get good money for rights in a country, and the content isn't on NF in that country. When the rights expire, it goes onto NF library. Why should they put that content on instead of selling rights? They wont get any money as everyone is still paying the unchanged NF fee.

Seems to me that some are complaining about a business maximising revenue, and they don't like that. Content owners could stop selling rights, and just up the cost to NF. Then some will complain about that. It could also be that the fee NF pays is low. So owners sell rights at good money then let NF have it for low dollars once the main interest is over. NF content is old I believe.The answer is simple, NF pays good money to the content owners, and puts its charging up, sorted.

That's just fine, but consumers like me will therefore just pirate the content and the producers will get nothing instead of a fair price. No skin off my nose. Exactly the same as I refuse to be ripped off for global days roaming and use a local sim instead

So when the new iPhone comes out, and it doesn't meet your price and availability, do you intend to break in and steal that as well?

Let's be clear. Pirating is THEFT. You are STEALING when you do this.

Access to Content is not your RIGHT, it's a privilege same way anything you don't get for free is.

Not strictly true, theft is defined as depriving someone of something which is theirs, which applies to your iPhone analogy, but not to making a copy of digital material. You'll never be charged with theft for copyright beach, because it isn't theft

Err I hate to break it to you sport, but you are depriving them of something they value considerably, that would be INCOME!

That still doesn't make it theft. If I take the bus home instead of driving, I'm depriving a taxi driver of income, but I'm not stealing from him. You may have swallowed the piracy is theft line, but that doesn't make it trueI'm not saying it's not illegal, but it's not theft

LOL What? I'll let you just think about how nonsensical that comparison was.

No less valid than your assertion that copyright beach is theftTheft is defined as taking something from someone, so after the act, the victim no longer has something that he previously had. This plainly doesn't apply to the act of someone downloading a movie. It may deprive the owner of the chance to make income, but he still had exactly the same property before and after the act. Just like if I hang around in my car at the airport offering lifts to people, I'm depriving taxi drivers their income, but I'm not stealing from themIf you really can't understand the difference just say so and I'll move on, don't be embarrassed about it

This debate has been going around and around and around since the internet was one.

MikeRetired IT Manager. The views stated in my posts are my personal views and not that of any other organisation.

That's just fine, but consumers like me will therefore just pirate the content and the producers will get nothing instead of a fair price. No skin off my nose. Exactly the same as I refuse to be ripped off for global days roaming and use a local sim instead

So when the new iPhone comes out, and it doesn't meet your price and availability, do you intend to break in and steal that as well?

Let's be clear. Pirating is THEFT. You are STEALING when you do this.

Access to Content is not your RIGHT, it's a privilege same way anything you don't get for free is.

Not strictly true, theft is defined as depriving someone of something which is theirs, which applies to your iPhone analogy, but not to making a copy of digital material. You'll never be charged with theft for copyright beach, because it isn't theft

Err I hate to break it to you sport, but you are depriving them of something they value considerably, that would be INCOME!

That still doesn't make it theft. If I take the bus home instead of driving, I'm depriving a taxi driver of income, but I'm not stealing from him. You may have swallowed the piracy is theft line, but that doesn't make it trueI'm not saying it's not illegal, but it's not theft

LOL What? I'll let you just think about how nonsensical that comparison was.

No less valid than your assertion that copyright beach is theftTheft is defined as taking something from someone, so after the act, the victim no longer has something that he previously had. This plainly doesn't apply to the act of someone downloading a movie. It may deprive the owner of the chance to make income, but he still had exactly the same property before and after the act. Just like if I hang around in my car at the airport offering lifts to people, I'm depriving taxi drivers their income, but I'm not stealing from themIf you really can't understand the difference just say so and I'll move on, don't be embarrassed about it

This debate has been going around and around and around since the internet was one.

No less valid than your assertion that copyright beach is theftTheft is defined as taking something from someone, so after the act, the victim no longer has something that he previously had. This plainly doesn't apply to the act of someone downloading a movie. It may deprive the owner of the chance to make income, but he still had exactly the same property before and after the act. Just like if I hang around in my car at the airport offering lifts to people, I'm depriving taxi drivers their income, but I'm not stealing from themIf you really can't understand the difference just say so and I'll move on, don't be embarrassed about it

So let me get this straight.

Lets say you are an artist, you are selling photos on the side of the road (Let's say they are original works, photos taken by you with your equipment and your resources including potentially, staff, vehicles, computers for post processing etc). I come along and take a photo of these photo's and setup in a stand right beside you, but instead of selling them and giving you the money, I either sell them and buy a new ferrari, or if I already have all the ferrari's I want, I decide, hell I'll just GIVE them away to anyone who expresses interest.

Hypothetical question to networkn - how would you feel if geoblocking was made illegal i.e. content owners were banned from placing geo restrictions on digital content i.e we could all parallel import it?

If the content owners then complained about geo-dodging as "stealing", would you still think it to be stealing, even if the law allowed parallel importing / banned geoblocking?

shk292: Theft is defined as taking something from someone, so after the act, the victim no longer has something that he previously had. This plainly doesn't apply to the act of someone downloading a movie. It may deprive the owner of the chance to make income, but he still had exactly the same property before and after the act. Just like if I hang around in my car at the airport offering lifts to people, I'm depriving taxi drivers their income, but I'm not stealing from them

Stealing has more than one definition but you omit two key points about the definition of stealing/theft. It is take something from the owner without their permission or without a legal right to it.

The taxi example is not a good one because it is hard to see how it would be stealing. The taxi drivers don't own what you're taking and in general you are legally able to offer lifts to other people.